Can Justice and mercy co-exist?

Many people from all around the world have debated Justice and mercy. Both are good to have but also hard to uphold. However, the problem is that whether this two can actually co-exist.

Justice is something like an eye for an eye type of resolution. For example, if you take someone’s life, your life will also be taken. Justice makes sure that the culprit will be punished, and also make the victim feel good because Justice has been done to the one who hurt him. Without Justice, the world will be in chaos. There will be murder, violence, robbery and many other things because the offender will not be punished and will hence, continue to continue. After a while, the whole world will collapse because there is too many of this. Therefore, Justice is important.

Mercy is something like the opposite of Justice, where the culprit is not punished but forgiven. An example is when a person kills someone, he is given a chance to turn over a new leaf and never commit his crime again.

Mercy can never co-exist with Justice. When a person commits a crime and if there is Justice, he will be given his punishment but if there is mercy, his punishment will either be lightened or removed.

In conclusion, I think that both Mercy and Justice are good virtues and are needed for a society to function well. The main thing is to know when to use Justice or Mercy. When a person has gone into a point where he cannot be forgiven anymore, then there can only be Justice.

Term 3 Week 5 What do you think is Shakespeare's intention of creating Shylock in The Merchant of Venice? Support your opinion with examples.

Shylock is one of the most important characters in the merchant of Venice. However, nobody is able to confirm whether he is “more sinned against than sinning”. Almost every story must basically consist of a villain and a “good guy”.

At that time, the audiences of Shakespeare’s play hated Jews. Hence Shakespeare made use of this and made Shylock a Jew character. His purpose in the play is to “play a villain” and stand in the way of the good people like Antonio, Bassanio and many others. Without Shylock, there also will not be the court scene, which is actually the most important scene the whole of Merchant of Venice. Hence, Shylock also helps to develop the story and make it more interesting and exciting, making the audience start thinking who will win- The Jew that they all hate, or Antonio.

When Shylock is stripped of all that he has. In every story, the villain will always lose. In this case, Shylock plays the part where the villain loses and does not get a pound of his flesh from Antonio, and even ends up losing his money, pride, and religion.

Hence, we can conclude that Shylock actually plays an extremely important part in the Merchant of Venice as without him, there would not be any plot or climax in the story.

Term 3 Week 4 (Blogging Assignment) Read the following Newsweek article, How to Raise a Global Kid, byLisa Miller (July 18, 2011) http://www.newsw

Jim Rogers’s main point is that with the world’ rapidly evolving economy, we must have a global perspective and stay connected to the rest of the world and must also have a good grasp of various languages.

As we all know, America has accumulated a tremendous debt of $14.46 million, far worse than 2006, and its debt crisis is becoming ever more pressing. Although America is the superpower at the moment, Jim Rogers is critical of this, because many other countries are also rising. An example is China, which is developing very quickly each day. In the 21^st Century, the children will have to meet foreign people, especially those from China. Hence, we will have to start getting exposed to other languages so that we will be able communicate with other people from other countries in future.

I agree with Jim Rogers’s argument, as America will no longer be the one and only superpower in the world. Although English is still widely used, the other languages are also equally important now. Also, even though America might be a superpower, it will still have to depend on other countries such as China and Japan for technology and knowledge. China is also extremely capable of producing cheap goods, many of which are of almost equal quality of the original goods made from America. Of course, many people will actually choose the goods from China because they are cheap and good. Even in Singapore, schools are teaching their students third language, which shows how even Singapore already recognizes this fact and are trying to help its citizens to prepare for the 21^st Century.

Hence, it is a must to be able to speak foreign languages and not just English because it will be to our advantage, as we will not only be depending on America in the future but also many other countries.

Term 3 Week 3 (Blogging Assignment) Read the following letter: http://www.temasekreview.com/2011/07/12/an-open-letter-to-the-education-minister-fr

Singapore is developing very quickly and nowadays, almost everybody has received education. However, there are still some flaws in the education system in Singapore.

I think that what Janelle Lee said is quite true. Singapore’s education is very examination-based. In order to score well, a student simply has to memorize all the information that the teacher asks them to and they will certainly do well. I feel that this is not the right way. This will actually cause many problems. For example, many people will think this way” As long as I get an A1, nothing else matters to me.” Also, memorizing facts will only give us very little help when we go to work. What we need is the application to real life, not just test papers.

Education should be something like really teaching us something and not cause at the end of the day, forget what we have memorized and graduate with little knowledge in our brains. Our examination marks should actually be given according to how well we understanding a topic and not how well we have memorized the information because memorizing facts does not actually mean that we really understand what the facts are and why they are so. In my opinion, I feel that schools should actually focus more allowing its students to be more curious and not only teach what is in the syllabus but move one step forward to explain it fully.

Schools should also focus more on developing a students’ character. People these days are getting more selfish and only care about themselves. Most of them are only concerned about things that benefit them and if a friend needs their help, they will not help. This is important as as the child grows up, he will not be able to “survive” if he has this type of attitude because if he himself needs help in future, no one will want to help me too. What good is getting A1s if a person does not know his moral values?

I feel that it is impossible to have an ideal education. In the first place, how do we define ideal? Is an ideal education a one that helps us and by simply memorizing facts, we can get A1s or is it one that can help us to fully understand facts so that we can learn more. According to Janelle Lee, an ideal education is where students actually not just memorize facts from their textbooks, but also take a step further to understand them. It is one where students learn out of their love for learning and also curiosity. However, as we hear many people say nowadays, their goal is to study hard, get into a good university, get a good job, and earn a lot of money. Hence, many people will still prefer the old way of education, where people can easily get As if they take the time to memorize chunks of information and facts and just simply write down what they have memorized during the tests.